Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Indoctrination

Here's FRC head Tony Perkins protesting a restriction on
federal money to schools:

"What the government is saying" with this measure, Perkins
asserts, is that "a private religious school cannot receive
any of the money that might follow that student because [the
government is] fearful that [the school] might indoctrinate
students in religion." He sees this as just one example of
the pronounced bias against religious schools arguably
contained in the proposal.

"You might think of that coming out of a communist
country -- out of Cuba -- but not out of the United States
of America," the FRC president says. "And I think there's
[cause for] greater concern over the indoctrination that
takes place in our public school system, not in our
religious schools," he adds.

...Last week the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard
oral arguments in Eklund v. Byron Union School District, a
case in which several parents and children represented by
the Thomas More Law Center challenged the school district's
practice of teaching 12-year-old students to "become
Muslims." The Law Center contends the actions of the school
in question crossed a constitutional line to begin
indoctrinating students, impermissibly placing them in the
position of being trainees in Islam. For three weeks, the
students were placed in Islamic city groups, took Islamic
names, wore identification tags that displayed their new
Islamic name along with the Muslim star and crescent moon
symbols. As part of the exercise, the children received
materials instructing them to "Remember Allah always,"
completed the "Five Pillars" of Islamic faith, and also
memorized and recited the basmala, an Islamic phrase from
the Koran, which they also wrote out on banners to be hung
in the classroom. A federal district court judge in San
Francisco had previously determined that the school district
had not violated the Constitution of the United States with
these activities. But according to Thomas More Law Center
chief counsel Richard Thompson, "There is a double standard
at play in this case. If the students had done similar
activities in a class on Christianity, a constitutional
violation would surely have been found." If the district's
practice is upheld on appeal, Thompson says all public
schools should begin teaching classes on Christianity in the
same manner as the Islam class was taught in this case.

I'm sympathetic to the claims arising out of California.
There's a fine line between teaching kids about Islam and
teaching kids to be Muslim. The summary as presented
certainly approaches indoctrination.

I'm sympathetic, of course, because I don't want my kids
indoctrinated into any religion. Tony Perkins is arguing
that his schools should be able to use federal money to
indoctrinate kids into his faith. We don't have a uniform
faith in this country. I doubt there's a school district in
this country with uniformity of faith. That's but one of
many good reasons not to use public money to indoctrinate
children. (The best reason, of course, is that children
ought not be indoctrinated into anything.)